TELLING THE STORY OF YOUR LIFE.

TELLING THE STORY OF YOUR LIFE. This article describes a branch of psychological research that I was unaware of. The research is based on analyzing two-hour interviews in which people tell their life stories. One conclusion is familiar: that it matters whether you tell your life story focusing on things that went wrong or on lucky turns of plot, a variant of the glass half full metaphor. Dan McAdams, who may have originated the line of research, speaks of the optimistic point of view as a redemption story line which he thinks is important in American history and literature. People do better when they view problems as challenges to be overcome rather than as character flaws. Another finding is that people who can look at painful past situations from a third person’s perspective rather than as a vivid first person memory deal with those situations better. I guess this last result would argue that actors should be better grounded than most people–contrary to popular conception– because they are trained to look at things from the spectator’s point of view. Unless, of course, they take the risk of relying too much on emotional recall.